Friday, April 24, 2009

How can we rekindle the world's desire for the Christian Gospel? Make it more attractive? Repackage it without changing in any way its essence? Or simply say it as it is, or share it as it is?

Lord, please help me to study and understand the Bible. As I read it daily, please allow the Holy Spirit to guide me and to enter my mind and heart so that I may truly understand the Bible.

Lord, in the Gospel reading for today, You asked us, Where can we buy enough food to eat? From nowhere else, Lord, or from no one else, but from You. You are the Bread of Life. Nothing in this world is ever enough, nothing satisfies. Oh, this world abounds with beauty and goodness, but they are all conditioned. They are merely the reflections of the eternal Good and Beauty that are Your qualities, Lord. "One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek, to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze at the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate His temple."

Lord, I am again wallowing in sin. There is lust in my heart once again, and I deliberately willed myself to sin. Lord, why do I believe this lie over and over again, that when I yield to temptation and commit sins, I shall be happy.

Lord, sin leads to destruction, to death, to spiritual suffering, to emptiness. My deepest longing, Lord, is to live, to truly live, to be happy and joyful, to expand, to grow, to bless others, to share myself to others, to bring them joy and laughter and love. Yet why do I choose sin, choose death?

Lord, please help me to choose life, to choose You, every second, every hour, every day of my life.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Lord, all Your servants in the Old and New Testaments suffered. All the saints suffered. Mother Theresa suffered, physically and spiritually. It seems that if I serve You Lord, I will also suffer. Maybe suffering, Lord, is just a part of life. Maybe life is even more unbearable and painful without You and if we don't serve You. Perhaps there is such a thing as "Holy suffering" and maybe it is a mark of a servant of God.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Lord, it is sometimes difficult to have faith. Some people may say: "Oh, faith is just a feeling." Others may say, "It's all in your head," or, "Faith is blind." How do I know if my faith is justified? How do I know, Lord, that my faith is not just an illusion? Oh Lord, please help me. Please grant me Your grace of faith. Please help me to be steadfast like father Abraham.

Holy Spirit, please burn inside me, because I want to have a faith that's on fire with love. I want to be "in touch" with You, so that I may go deeper into the mind and heart of God. Amen.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

"Almsgiving proceeds from a merciful heart and is more useful for the one who practices it than for the one who recieves it, for the man who makes a practice of almsgiving draws out a spiritual profit from his acts, whilst those who recieve his alms recieve only a temporal benefit."